


Tsubaki

by MarineHaddock



Series: Toku Hanahaki [3]
Category: Kamen Rider Kuuga
Genre: Body Horror, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hanahaki Disease, Hospitals, M/M, inconclusive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27366901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarineHaddock/pseuds/MarineHaddock
Summary: Chouno wakes up in the hospital to another lecture on self-care.
Relationships: Chouno Junichi/Tsubaki Shuuichi
Series: Toku Hanahaki [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864243
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Tsubaki

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DroppedAllTheseOreos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DroppedAllTheseOreos/gifts).



Chouno woke up to an unfamiliar stain on the ceiling. It was the first thing that seemed different to him. Otherwise, it was completely plain and exactly how it always was. A plain ceiling attached to a plain wall. For a few minutes, he couldn't even tell that it wasn't his ceiling. The stain was the giveaway that made him realise something was up. Then it was realising the pressure on his face from the mask. Then the strange pressure of the needle in his arm, connected to the IV. It was quickly clicking that something was up.

He was back in the hospital. Back in another ward all by himself. He'd never spent this much time in a hospital in his life. He always heard people boast about how they only went to the hospital for their yearly check-up and here he was. Starting to feel like he was never out of the place. He'd lost track of how much time he'd been spending between hospitals recently, not even counting the check-ups. God, he'd been back and forth for so many check-ups recently. Wellness checks and "I hear you missed your therapy appointment"s and blood counts and brain scans and...

When he sighed, the mask fogged up. Part of him dreamed of being dramatic again. Ripping off the mask, ripping out the IV. He'd been lectured for that before but back then he didn't care. Now he was actually worried about snapping a needle in his arm.

It would be nice if his own doctor believed him about having made actual improvements with the new therapist. It wasn't the stupid one they'd sent him to so it wasn't good enough for them. They wanted him to stick with their recommendations, but Tsubaki had known a better one. He'd said he usually met with therapists at events, all there to talk about death and grief. Looking to discuss how they helped patients and see what they could try or who they could recommend people on to. Talking to them, Tsubaki knew a few that seemed like they'd be able to handle Chouno's issues well. Tsubaki was able to set it up and he was able to try again. Finally talking to someone he was comfortable with. Someone who was actually listening to him.

Someone other than Tsubaki at least.

He could feel how stiff he was. How long had he been lying there? What was he even in for this time? Where had he been before waking up? He remembered working on a project, then realising how late it was and stopping to go to the convenience store. He left his apartment, locked the door, and then...

Something must have happened after that. Hopefully, it wasn't something too serious. Maybe low blood sugar or something. Did they really need an oxygen mask for low blood sugar? Sometimes the hospital did seem to get ahead of themselves.

One such example would be when a patient pressed the 'call nurse' button and the person who responded was the coroner. Who, as always, was trying to pass himself off as some sort of doctor.

"Chouno," Tsubaki picked up the clipboard from the end of the bed as he approached him, giving it a quick flip through where it was hard to tell if he was actually reading it. He'd really taken to playing doctor. "How are you doing?"  
"I'd like to know, I don't remember why I'm here," Tsubaki put the clipboard back and stared at him with that cocked eyebrow and the half-smile. It was almost enough to make him choke.

Or rather, cough. The sight of it seemed to bring on a wild coughing fit with his heart hammering in his chest. Desperately pushing the air up through him and pushing some horrible blockage up his throat. It clung to the sides, resisting the entire way up but eventually, a few petals came loose and fluttered in the mask.

Chouno ripped it from his face, staring at where they clung to the inside. He was gasping for air without the mask, feeling the bulk in his throat still stuck there. Right. Right, he'd been having coughing fits for a while. He hadn't thought much of them though. It was getting into the sprint. He'd assumed it was just maybe a bit of early hayfever or a cold with the changing weather. Nothing to worry about. When he'd coughed up the petals before he'd wrote them off as having come from somewhere else. He just hadn't noticed them blow inside his coat or onto his tissue. There was nothing to worry about with them.

Except now here he was. In the hospital again.

"So, when were you going to get that checked out?"  
"It's nothing."  
"Really?" Tsubaki picked the clipboard back up and looked over it again. "Because it says here that you suddenly collapsed due to a large number of flowers blocking your respiratory system. If they'd been there any longer we might have been looking at a new flower patch in your apartment hallway."  
"It wasn't that bad."

Tsubaki sighed, putting the clipboard back once again.  
"You could have died if they didn't operate on you when they did. You're lucky anyone even found you that late at night. If those flowers spread any further, they could have blocked off blood flow to your brain and then-"  
"Then you would actually be my doctor," Chouno picked the petals out of the mask, round and a beautiful shade of red. Maybe he'd learn to make paints from flower petals. That might be a bit too romantic a thought though.  
"You need to take this seriously."  
"I didn't even know I had hanahaki."  
"Well, you know if you're seriously interested in someone it's going to have a high risk of developing. You were probably just showing fewer signs because it was still Winter. You need to think ahead on these things and if you like someone, stock up on meds."  
"But I didn't think I was interested in anyone."

Tsubaki didn't believe him. That was clear. He had that exhausted look he always did when he thought someone wasn't being completely honest with him. He was though. He hadn't thought he'd been interested in anyone. He'd just been focused on his work the past few months. Spending long hours on drawings and not meeting with anyone or thinking about anyone. Most the time, if he did, he was just thinking about doctors and therapy or Tsubaki. No one was on his mind and it wasn't like he was looking for anyone at the minute.

"Anyway, it's not like it's that serious," Chouno said, looking over the mask again. You never hanahaki these days. Most treatments were effective, whether it was an operation or medication. Even without that, it was only until you got over your crush or they liked you back. It wasn't any sort of big deal.

Yet Tsubaki's eyes were boring holes through him. He didn't need to look up to feel them. Did he just have a habit of over-reacting to people's problems or something?

Tsubaki walked round the bed and took hold of the IV needle.  
"Hey, what are you doing?"  
"I'm taking your IV out."  
"You're not my nurse."  
"Well, do you want to take the IV with you?"  
"With me where?"  
"It's easier if you just let me take it out."  
"For fuck's sake-" Tsubaki took it out before he could finish. Reflexively he bent his elbow up to put pressure on it while Tsubaki got the cotton wool and tape to stick it on with. "I thought you'd prefer that I was actually complying with the doctors now."  
"I'm your doctor right now, I'm prescribing you treatment."  
"I didn't know I was such a lost cause."  
"Trust me." The look he gave him was following that with a 'you are'.

He followed Tsubaki out and down the stairwell. Down and down, past the wards and reception. Nurses and doctors are visitors pushing past them so desperately he almost lost sight of Tsubaki among them. Maybe if he waited a minute, a nurse would direct him back to his bed and he'd get out of whatever Tsubaki was planning. Yet he kept going so apparently he wasn't allowing himself that option.

There was no reason for the coroner's landing to be so dark though. Most of the hall was illuminated only by the emergency lighting. They had to have other coroners than Tsubaki in this place. There was no way it was just him down here, leaving it looking like a scene for a horror game. He'd have to remember it though. There was a pretty haunting feeling that surrounded it. If he could get some pencils brought in he could sketch it quickly to build on later.

The lights snapped on the second they stepped into the hallway. It was back to looking like another clinically clean part of the hospital. White walls without a mark on them and bulbs that maybe needed a bit more of a shade on them. Tsubaki was already off, marching down the hall in his perfectly white coat as if he really were a doctor with an important patient to see to. If it weren't for his awful bedside manner, Chouno might have suggested he refocus himself.

They walked down the hall, the smell of chemicals trying to drown out the smell of decay as they passed certain doors. He didn't need to read the signs on them to know what they were. The offices were quiet but he could hear someone else knocking about in one of them. Cursing and scribbling. Knocking something over just after they passed, the bouncy rattling as it hit the floor followed by the hollow bucket after it. Not that Tsubaki noticed. Must be part of the tour as far as he was concerned.

Finally, he opened a door. Not a second's hesitation as he stepped into the autopsy room. A splash as he stepped into the water. Chouno had forgotten their love of flooding the place. At least he was still in the hospital gown, that way he wouldn't have to worry about a change of clothes. Getting his feet soaked, however, was still going to be inconvenient. It was hardly likely there would be a cleaner happy to follow him up the stairs with paper towels.

None the less, Chouno followed him in. There was already something on the table. Something he'd have to assume Tsubaki had been working on before he came up to see him.

Something that had to have been a human once.

The body looked as if it were ready to pop at any moment. Swollen and bulbous and rotting. He'd always expected corpses in hospitals to still resemble humans, but this one only held the vague outline, with the flesh clinging on desperately as it had been eaten away at. The torso was the most intact of all of it. A gash had been cut down the middle and the flowers had bloomed through it. Vines and stems gradually pushing the flesh out their way as they fought to rise further than their competition, desperately reaching for the light of the heat lamps. Where the skin above the ribs lifted, Chouno could see the roots that had buried themselves in it, seeking more food and stability as they grew. The heart was covered in a disgusting brown moss that continued up inside where he couldn't see.

It was sick. The body before him had once been someone. Someone who had a life once but for whatever reason ended up succumbing to the disease. Whether it was pride or naivete. Whether they had kept holding out hope that their love would be returned or, like him, they had simply decided they didn't fear death as much as they did rejection. The result was the same. They were now no one. Their brain, their vocal cords, their face; it had all been decomposed by hungry plants that feasted on them joyously. They were dead and they could no longer feel for that special someone. They were dead and now scientists would encourage the growth of those plants. Encourage them to destroy more and more of who this person had once been because they had to learn. They had to study. For that purpose, someone who was once beloved could become no one.

He couldn't bring himself to look closer. He couldn't even get closer. The horrific stench of a rotten corpse merged with the sickly sweet smell of the flowers was overpowering. He could feel his eyes watering until he finally looked away, being completely overwhelmed by it all.

They vomit was quickly washed down the drain and he stood at the tap, desperately washing it from his face and hands. The petals sticking harder to his skin the wetter they got. Every attempt to peel them off just making them stick somewhere else.

He could imagine it. They way they would someday burst through his skin. The delicate petals pushing through. Seeds falling and burying their roots in him. A forest steadily growing on his body, feeding off him eternally. He'd need to check he hadn't signed up to donate his body to science at any point in his life. If they burned him or buried him at least the flowers should die shortly after him. He couldn't become like them. He couldn't be experimented on. He couldn't be treated like that. Death wasn't for him, he couldn't be such a simple human. There had to be more. There had to be something, anything.

Tsubaki plucked the petals off him and wiped them onto the sink, watching the water sweep them up and force them away from him. Off to die and rot in the pipes. Far from him. Far from their cousins on the corpse. They wouldn't survive. He would live today and they would die as they were cut off from their source.

He would live today.

"So, are you going to end up like them?" Tsubaki spoke so calmly. Always an air as if nothing would ever bother him. No horrific sight would be too much. It was all something he had seen a million times. Overseeing the death of others and never flinching at what he saw.

Chouno didn't answer him. It felt as if trying to would just lead to throwing up all over again. Opening his mouth would welcome in that sickly air and he couldn't handle another mouthful of the stuff.

Tsubaki lead him out and took him back to the ward. It was still as empty as when they left it. He handed him a glass of water from the jug on the side and sat on the side of the bed. None of the doctors did that. They were always so professional, so clinical. Always stoic and they would never allow someone to sit on the side of the bed. They could never act so familiar as to sit there themselves. Tsubaki never seemed to keep that professional distance with him. Always prying a bit too much, trying to find out just a little more than was strictly necessary. Tsubaki always wanted to know about him as him and not just as a patient.

Tsubaki leaned across him, taking the picture off the table and looking over it. A small smile on his face as he stared at the camellias and asked him.  
"So, what are you going to do?"

Chouno didn't meet his eye but he could tell Tsubaki wasn't looking at him either.

Was it really that serious? He didn't even know what this was about. He'd been living fine. It was just a little cough. Now here he was in the hospital, with this bastard coroner telling him to buck up or die. Where the Hell did he get off? What did he do any of this for anyway? There was a corpse on his autopsy table and rather than do the damn autopsy here he was. Here he was, going around the wards to scare the patients. It's a wonder the nurses hadn't labelled him a menace.

"I'll take whatever medication or surgery or whatever."  
"And the guy?" Chouno instinctively flinched at that. He shouldn't be too shocked that Tsubaki would guess that. He hadn't been the first to make assumptions about him.  
"If I find out who he is, then sure, I'll tell him."

Tsubaki looked away as if he were trying to find anything else to look at. Maybe he had expected him to press on how he knew.  
"I'll get them to write you up a prescription in the meantime. It's a completely elective surgery and like you said, take your pills and you'll be fine. When you work out who it is, let them know. It'll either cure you or help you get over them."  
"Very romantic."  
"Comes from a lot of rejection."  
"What, girls not exactly into being complimented on their bone structure?" He could know about some things too. He'd been a little curious about Tsubaki the first time they met and information like what kind of date he was was surprisingly easy to come by.

It threw Tsubaki off though. That was definitely worth something. Suddenly he'd gone from the "I know better than you, you need to take this seriously" doctor to desperately trying to straighten his clothes and hair. Trying to make himself look like he very much had it together.  
"Is it bad to tell a woman she has a nice spine?"

Tsubaki's pager went off and he left with a quick reminder to make sure he got the prescription before he left. He had to buzz for the nurse to ask about putting the IV back in. He was pretty badly winded from going up and down the stairs so it was best to keep the mask. His real doctor was to check in on him later but he wasn't to expect them any time soon. Hospitals probably had bigger worries than a post-op hanahaki patient. He fell asleep still waiting on them.

When he woke up, he noticed a bright splash of colour out the corner of his eye. A bouquet of camellias, a mixture of red and yellow, sat in the tacky vase at his bedside. They definitely hadn't been there earlier. He took one of the red ones from it and noticed the notecard beside the vase. He recognised the colour and the shape of the petals. Holding them together with the ones he coughed up earlier, they were a perfect match.

'Get well soon'. The card was completely plain except for that, no 'to' or 'from'. A secret admirer or a caring friend that wanted to go unnamed.

"If you want it to be a mystery, don't send flowers of your name."


End file.
